Momentum is powerful. Fiercely guard it.

T-Mobile announced another awesome quarter and year-end numbers yesterday—adding 2.1 million net additions in Q4 and 8.2 million for 2016. That makes 15 consecutive quarters we’ve added more than one million net subscribers. We have grown from 33 million customers in 2013 to 71.5 million customers today.

These results are incredible. And each quarter we’ve taken a very brief pause to celebrate, usually in a 90 minute employee all hands meeting and then we get right back to fighting. Why?

Because momentum is powerful and you have to fiercely guard it. 

Maybe I’m just paranoid, but fear of losing our momentum keeps me up at night—even after three and a half years of tremendous success. That’s why already in 2017 we went ALL-IN on T-Mobile ONE at Un-carrier Next, earned a #1 Customer Service Satisfaction rating by Nielsen, were one of the biggest advertisers at the Super Bowl, cleaned up in the latest Network Report by OpenSignal, and brought Pizza Back to T-Mobile Tuesdays.

Look at our competitors—AT&T and Verizon. These are massive companies with huge balance sheets, but they can’t buy momentum and it’s not easy to grab it once it’s gone. It can’t be done with a single promo or switcher offer. It takes real grit to string a series of wins together and keep going.

It’s not enough to have a strategy. As John Legere pointed out on CNBC it takes a culture. That’s what I love about our team. We’re restless. We’re relentless. We turn rough ideas into industry-shaking new offerings overnight. Because while success is sweet, momentum is everything. And if we’re not innovating and evolving every damn day it’ll be gone. At least that’s what my paranoia tells me. :-)

I’d love to hear what you think! And I invite you to follow me on Twitter @SievertMike.